At the Little Middle School, we have too many books for the shelves.

This is not a problem I used to see clearly. I just figured that we needed more shelves.

That is, until I encountered the work of Dana K. White, a self-professed “deslobification” expert out of Texas who proposes a simple idea she calls The Container Concept: shelves, boxes, bins, closets, and even homes are containers, meant to contain, or limit, the number of items that can be there.

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If you have watched the Hamilton movie on Disney Plus — or were lucky enough to see it in person before the world shut down — you might appreciate seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s performance of an early version of the musical’s opener, “Alexander Hamilton,” at the White House back in 2009.

Already a seasoned performer, the twenty-nine-year-old Miranda channels his nervous energy into his rapping and singing, creating that magical feedback loop between soloist, accompanist, and audience, elevating the moment and getting everyone on board with something entirely new. At the same time, you can see that the concept is not fully formed, and the piece is definitely not polished. It’s a high-wire act, with all the danger that implies, and Miranda, with the support of Alex Lacamoire, just barely managed to make it to the other side.

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These days, I’m learning how to manage projects.

This is not a well-developed skill for me. I’m good at managing a process — something repeatable that can be refined over time — and I’ve had a lot of experience dealing well with novel situations and improvising on the fly. My weakness is one-time, short-term endeavors with a beginning, middle, and end. Projects. Yeah, those.

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It’s a pretty standard assignment: You read a chapter and then answer questions about it.

Most of the time, you won’t remember what you read well enough to discuss it if you read it only once. You have to take notes and refer to them. You might need to read the chapter, or parts of it, more than once.

Yet my students resist this reality. They attempt to answer the questions off the top of their head, as though the knowledge is already in their long-term memory. This results in all kinds of weird, off-the-mark responses that leave me scratching my head in confusion until I realize what the problem is.

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After spending most of the last quarter of last year making a dining-room table-full of holiday gifts, I decided that I wanted to knit some things for myself.

I made a shawl and a hat and some fingerless mitts; a cape and a couple pairs of leg-warmers. But what I really wanted to make was a sweater.

And then I spent hours combing Ravelry (a website for knitters and crocheters) for juuuust the right one. I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, so I considered designing my own.

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